Geocaching

Posted by Barry Houseknecht Dec 4, 2006

We went “Geocaching” recently and I was reminded that this is great fun and a great use for your GPS. Hey it’s also a reason for getting that much wanted GPS. Geocaching is a relatively new sport coming about with the advent of the public use of the global positioning system signals. It’s great practice for using your GPS and taking direction from the one who is operating the GPS. People have hidden caches everywhere your task is to find as many as you can. When you locate a cache it is called a find, you log it on the Website as such the more finds you have the better but it’s not a completion. There are some that have literally thousands of finds.

The caches don’t usually don’t have anything of real value in them; the fun is in the hunt. Other than buying the GPS there is no other expense to you and it’s a great way to kill time. We like to make their hunts an all day thing taking a lunch and spending time with the family. These caches are listed on geocaching sites on the internet (

All I know is that we have done it from NY to CA to FL and all points in between. I’ll bet there are over 1 million of these caches and the number is growing. There are all kinds of caches some are what is called virtual, this would be something like a historical place or ghost town. You would have to answer questions to get credit for these. We have found some very interesting places that we normally would not have known were even there. Try it have fun!

www.geocaching.com ) is just one. It’s a bit hard to explain but these sites have a wealth of info and at least the one mentioned is free.